As in the Spring, we’re surveying candidates in the upcoming Student Government election on their stances on the things we care about. SG, via direct spending or via lobbying, can influence many issues that are important to Florida Free Culture.

The following questionnaire was sent to both SG parties (Gator and Impact) and each independent candidate. We’ll post the results here before the election, as well as announce them at our Sept. 26 meeting.

questionnaire begins

Florida Free Culture, a student organization at UF, is conducting a questionaire to gauge the positions of Student Government candidates on certain free culture issues. FFC will post the results on our Web site and announce the answers at our September 26 meeting.

Please note that FFC is non-partisan and will not endorse any party or candidate.

To learn more about Florida Free Culture, visit our Web site or come to our meeting on September 26 at 7:15 p.m. in Flint Hall room 121.

SG Senate Candidate Questionnaire

Name:
Seat:

If you are elected, would you support or oppose the following, and why?

• Supporting the creation of a student seat on the Information Technology Advsiory Committee (ITAC) in the Office of Information Technology? (The committee currently has no student members.)
• An SG-financed music downloading program for all students?
• An SG-financed site license for Microsoft software for all students?
• Working with professors to make course material available online?
• Supporting open access to research conducted at UF or published in UF journals? (Open access means making findings and data freely available online.)
• Supporting the use of free / open source software on university computers? (Free, or open source, software is software that provides certain freedoms to users, e.g. the rights to modify and redistribute. For instance, Mozilla Firefox is free software.)
• Supporting the use of open file formats for university documents? (Open file formats are computer file formats based on free, open standards. For instance, Microsoft Word’s .doc file format is not an open format, but a proprietary format controlled by Microsoft.)

Thank you for your participation. Please return this questionaire by Sunday, September 25 to Gavin Baker.

If you have any questions about the above issues, feel free to contact us, or visit the following sites for more information:

• IT Advisory Commitee
• Problems with online music stores
• Open access
• Free software
• Open source software
• Open formats

Good luck in the election!
Florida Free Culture